1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to structures for cushioning and protecting objects, for example when being stored or moved in cartons, and more particularly provides a bumper made from a folded and glued sheet material blank.
2. Prior Art
Many types of objects need to be protected from jarring, jolting, and resultant damage when they are packaged in cartons for transportation, shipment, or other transit. It is known to provide cartons and shipping containers with bumpers, sleeves, or similar inserts that are placed in a space between an object to be shipped and the walls of the surrounding container. In a rectilinear carton and/or to protect a generally rectilinear object, such inserts can be placed at each corner. Other shapes are also possible such as larger shapes that fit all around the object, or at least form a partial shell. The inserts have a certain resilience to cushion the object against impacts against the container, and may also contribute to the structure of the container and strengthen it for stacking.
An often encountered form of these bumpers or inserts is polystyrene foam in blocks sized and shaped to complement both the selected outer contours of the object to be protected and the inner walls of the container. It is also known to use pellets or other loose fill material, again generally made of polystyrene foam, to occupy the void space between an object to be protected and the surrounding carton.
Polystyrene foam cushioning material has certain disadvantages. For example, polystyrene insert cushioning blocks are generally made from a mold or die, which may be unique to a particular object to be shipped. Shipping different objects may require different individual dies to make appropriately sized and shaped blocks. The need to make and stock polystyrene and similar blocks can be expensive.
In addition, polystyrene and other formed block inserts, once formed are bulky items to ship to the packing facility and to store and use. This bulkiness becomes especially significant when dealing with a high volume packing facility which would require a significant number of polystyrene inserts to place in boxes as they are being loaded with the objects to be shipped. On the receiving end, after the objects are unpacked, the bulky blocks must be disposed of.
Another disadvantage of polystyrene bumpers and inserts is that they protect the object by completely filling selected void spaces between the object and the carton. The void spaces filled and occupied by the polystyrene are unavailable for packing additional components. In other words, it would be desirable adequately to protect an object to be shipped but also to leave space, if possible, which can be used to ship other components in the same carton.
It is known to use corrugated paperboard sheet material as a protective spacer, including to protect corners of articles from damage. Examples of such corner protectors are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,134,496--Smith; 4,440,304--Konopko; and 4,529,091--Martin.
Such corrugated corner protectors have their own drawbacks. Often the protectors require folding sheet material into L-shapes, rolled boxes and the like, which are then fit between the object and the container. Various folding operations may be needed to form the protector from flat sheet stock materials. Such corner protectors may be ill-suited to be folded by machine operations and instead require manual folding operations. A corner protector which is complicated to assemble from its sheet blank, and/or which requires manual folding operations for such assembly, can be prone to being assembled incorrectly. In addition, complicated manual folding operations require time to execute and can be inefficient.
Known corner protectors using corrugated paperboard generally rely on the combination of resilience and support of the corrugated sheet material itself to provide the cushioning needed to protect the object while supporting it at a spaced from a container wall. Corrugated sheet material in some applications does not provide the required protection.
There is a need for a bumper or insert which overcomes such drawbacks and disadvantages. Such a bumper or insert should be relatively inexpensive to manufacture, relatively adaptable to different products or objects to be protected, easy to ship, and easy to assemble.